


Bring On The Driving Rain

by sunspot (unavoidedcrisis)



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Divine Rosamund The Sexy Divine, F/M, First Kiss, Horrible Scenery, Is Leliana Jacked?, Rain, Rescue Missions, Where "It" Is Every Thought You've Ever Had, Why Yes She Is, talking it out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-07 23:17:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20825456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unavoidedcrisis/pseuds/sunspot
Summary: Two people are a lot less conspicuous than a squadron of foot soldiers traipsing around when it comes time for a rescue mission. Yes, Lace would probably feel better marching into unknown, unfriendly, likely hostile terrain, with thirty men, but if she could only pick one partner to bring along, at least it's The Iron Bull, the toughest so-and-so in the Inquisition."I know I'm doll-sized compared to you, but you know you can swear in front of me, right? I am an adult.""Yeah, I know, it's just that normally people call me a tough son of a bitch, but I never knew my actual mother, so..."Lace snorts. "So you don't want to call her a bitch?""Exactly! You get it. Maybe she's really nice, and there's some meathead out here calling her this and that... if word got back, maybe it'd hurt her feelings. No one wants to hurt their mother's feelings, right?"





	Bring On The Driving Rain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [D_elfie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/D_elfie/gifts).

If there's one thing that Lace Harding is, she's a dwarf.

If there's two things, she's a dwarf who is wonderfully good at her job.

If there's three things that Lace Harding is, it's an incomparably competent dwarf who's sick to death of the fucking jungle.

She's couldn't be more unimpressed with this place if she tried. As long as the Inquisition defeats Corphyeus, Lace is just sure she'll live for a long time as she is of her basic qualities, and in that time, she will hate nothing more than she hates the jungle.

"Nearly there now, Harding," says The Iron Bull.

"Yes, probably," she says, trying to un-grit her teeth. "I know, but if these bugs don't-"

Bull cuts her off by slapping one of the bloodsucking monster bugs off her forehead.

"Thanks, Bull," Lace says, feeling her jaw ache with the force of her annoyance.

They march onwards, Bull in the lead.

It's been four days since they left the main Inquisition camp in this area and six days of traipsing through damp, bug-infested marshland. It's not been easy or pleasant. Lace has had about all she can handle, and they still have Maker knows how much further to go.

* * *

One night, the Inquisitor's advisors and his inner circle were called together in the main hall and Lace somehow garnered an invite. She wasn't sure why until Inquisitor Adaar brings up the problem of The Chargers.

They'd left Skyhold to find a secure a small outpost in the Arbor Wilds, but no one's heard from them in weeks. Leliana had sent a few ravens, but they all ended up back at Skyhold with their messages still attached. No one's saying they're worried, but they're all definitely worried.

Then the suggestion came up that a party should be sent after them. 

"Good," The Iron Bull said, almost a growl, when the Inquisitor called on Lace to lead the rescue mission.

"Good?"

"You're the best we've got. I'll need the best out there."

"Oh, actually, Bull, I was kind of thinking --" Karaas cut himself off when he saw Bull's face. "Yes, Harding is the best of the best, good luck, you two."

So the rescue mission of two set out from Skyhold to find the missing Chargers, and it seemed like it was off to a boring start -- and boring was always good in the field. Boring means no one's trying to eat your arms off. Boring was fine, until the winding, gravelly roads and dense Orlesian forests turn to wetlands, sweeping, leaning trees with vines that snake out into the overgrown path. And then the bugs start. It was still pretty boring, but between boring and bugs, bugs wins out and the frustration becomes… unproductive.

And the bugs started six days ago -- nearly seven now. Unproductive to say the least.

* * *

"We should stop for the night," Bull says. Lace is usually the one who calls for a rest; he's driven on by those long, long legs and the thought that his people are out there and need his help.

"Okay," Lace says. She tries to keep her face and tone blank, but she's traveling with the buff Qunari version of Leliana. He immediately turns back to her and frowns.

"Okay what? You think we should keep going, right? If we're out here, we might as well keep going. It's not getting any nicer."

Lace shrugs helplessly. "I don't know. Maybe we could stop for a bit. It's getting dark." Truth is, it's been dark for the better part of an hour. Bull's holding a lantern that only casts a pathetic, watery glow on their surroundings.

Bull heaves a big sigh before he nods. "Ahh, shit. You're right, you're right. Hang on a second." He shuffles some things in his hands and passes Lace the lantern. She realizes he's had his weapon drawn at least since they stopped last.

"Over there," he says. He prods at the swampy dirt under their feet. "Ground gets firmer this way."

* * *

Later, when they've had some water, eaten some druffalo jerky and dry bread because no damn wood in this half of the world wants to light, and set up their probably-too-small-for-one-Qunari-let-alone-a-Qunari-and-a-dwarf-plus-their-respective-gear tent, Lace finally feels like she has a chance to dry off and relax.

"I'm surprised how well this thing dried out," she says. Bull crawls into the narrow space next to her, and they start their evening ritual of trying to gouge Lace's eyes out with the points of his horns.

"Yeah, me too. Lucky thing. I'm starting to get sick of the damp."

"Starting? Just now, you're starting?"

"Yeah, it's awful for my knee."

Lace scoffs. She can't believe he's only just _starting_. "No kidding. My knees are fine and I've been sick of the damp for umm, well let's see, add four to six, carry the one, multiply by ten million… oh, let's say going on ten years now."

There's nothing but the sound of wind and the eerie rasp of thorns from the awful vines, dragging across the canvas of the tent.

"We'll find them soon," Bull says. It could be an offhand thing, like he's reassuring her they won't have to be out here much longer, but the way he says it, it almost sounds like a question he needs to have answered.

"Yeah. Of course we will." Lace is trying again to keep her tone even and not sound so unsure, even though she knows pretty much any attempt of subterfuge on her part will be useless around him.

He doesn't comment on her obvious worry or her shaky tone; he just nods very, very carefully.

Gentle rain starts pattering on their tent. If it stays gentle, they might just stay dry. The sound is soothing, in a way. It's not the same sound as rain on the roof of her childhood bedroom or the dull beating of rain on glass. It's got an organic kind of sound, distinctly 'natural,' like this sound and this rain and her listening to it here and now are part of the natural order of things.

Maybe she's thinking a little too deeply right before sleep. Lace forces her mind onto a lighter path. Next to her, she can feel Iron Bull breathing. In and of itself, that's comforting, but after a few seconds she can tell it's too even to be awake and relaxed breathing, but still too quick to be sleeping.

"Bull? You okay?" 

Lace knows the moment the words are out that she shouldn't have asked. When those scouts were captured by the Avaar in the Fallow Mire, Lace was sick with worry for nearly a month until Karaas and Cole brought them back. That was despite the fact she barely knew any of them except to nod at them over breakfast. Bull's people are missing, maybe worse than just missing, and he's lived, worked, travelled, and fought with them all for years.

He tenses and Lace bites down her lip, thinking a hundred and one new names to call herself for being so stupid, but she feels him relax in the next breath.

"Nah, not really. Not even a little. Don't want to burden you with it all though. You're already stuck out here."

"It's not a burden. But we are stuck out here. Together. So you can talk to me about whatever you like."

"Huh," he says. He shifts again, bonking the top of her head with one horn. "Okay. Thanks." Bull doesn't say anything else.

After a few minutes of listening to the rain on the canvas, Lace blurts out a question that's been teasing her since they were still walking. "Do you think Leliana's like… buff? Under all those layers? I know she's a great archer, and she travelled with the Hero of Fereldan, right? So she's probably very fit…"

Bull laughs, quietly to himself for second, but then a lot louder once he's had a chance to consider it. "Yeah, she's probably pretty buff. Why?"

"Just a thought I was having."

"Oh, I get it. It's not really a bad thought to have, is it?"

"Bull, I didn't mean it like _that._"

"No?"

"Well… not really."

He starts laughing again. "You're alright, Harding."

"Thanks," she mutters. At least it's dark so he can't see her face burning up.

* * *

Lace leads them the next morning. At least, she thinks it's morning. The vegetation is getting thicker and thicker and blocking out all but the most desperate rays of sunlight. She hesitates to use the word 'path' out here, but there seems to be a place where there's a bit more space between the mammoth trees. She heads in that direction.

They've not moved more than five hundred yards when Bull lets out a choked-off yell. Lace spins immediately, cursing herself for losing her concentration and letting someone get the slip on them.

He's grinning like a school child and waving his arms at the tree trunk closest to them.

"Look," he crows.

Lace would have spotted it -- if someone had told her what she was looking for. But until he pointed it out, the mark faded into the brown and green speckled moss. It looked like a rudimentary stick version of the 'horns up' salute the Chargers always did and it was freshly cut in the moss, probably only a few days old.

"They're okay, and they're around here somewhere," Bull says. He's almost dancing now, sloshing mud around his boots; his expression borders on glee. Lace grins along with him.

"That's great! Means the hard part is almost over."

* * *

It meant, in reality, that they spend the next nine or so hours walking in wobbly circles, looking for another sign from the Chargers that will help them narrow down a location. Nothing comes. Except the rain. And oh, how it came.

"Stop," Bull says, basically shouting to her through the downpour. "Let's just stop, this is crazy."

The tent is decidedly less dry tonight, and of course again, no fire and no warmth. Bull passes her a little flask from somewhere deep within his voluminous trousers and Lace takes a grateful sip. It's a pleasant, woody whisky, and it burns just enough going down that she can forget she's about to freeze to death for a few minutes. Honestly, she would have been fine with whatever foreign Qunari stuff he might have been carrying too.

"Wow, you took it like a champ," he says. They've risked a candle tonight, balanced inside of the pot Lace uses to boil water for tea. They're both too worked up from the frustration of the day and it's not going to be fun trying to sleep anyway.

"What, didn't think dwarves could hold their liquor?"

Bull lets out a guffaw and pokes her in the knee, teasing. "Nah, nothing like that. Just don't normally see you the Herald's Rest, drinking with the rest of us."

"Because I'm normally in the pretty places like this, drinking all alone."

He laughs again. "Aww, poor Lace. Oughta tell Karaas to let you come out on the road with us sometimes."

"I've heard all the stories. The Storm Coast, that dragon in Crestwood. The _firewood incident._ My professionalism would blow you all away; you wouldn't be able to handle it."

At the mention of the Firewood Incident, The Iron Bull fully loses it. He flops down on his side, howling with laughter, holding his chest and his bad knee.

"You laugh a lot," Lace points out, when he's finally regained enough composure that his horns aren't threatening to rip a new hole in the tent walls.

"Ahh, I do. Life's too short to not laugh when shit's funny. Why, you didn't think Qunari knew anything about comedy?"

"Honestly, no," she says. Karaas and Bull are both funny, she supposes, but they aren't exactly a proper sample of Qunari.

"You're right, we don't. I spent some time in Rivain though. Whew. Really interesting people up that way." He chuckles again at the ghosts of those memories.

Lace grins, readjusting the candle in the pot and moving it so she could stretch out next to him. "Just, y'know, a lot of childlike giggling for such a big, tough guy."

"Hey now, I'm still The Iron Bull, the toughest so-and-so in the Inquisition."

"I know I'm doll-sized compared to you, but you know you can swear in front of me, right? I'm an adult."

"Yeah, I know, it's just that normally people call me a 'tough son of a bitch,' but I never knew my actual mother, so..."

Lace snorts. "So you don't want to call her a bitch?"

"Exactly! You get it. Maybe she's really nice, and there's some meathead out here calling her this and that... if word got back, maybe it'd hurt her feelings. No one wants to hurt their mother's feelings, right?"

Lace concedes the point. "You're right."

"And you're way too easy to talk to," Bull says. He seems to immediately sober on the thought.

"Sorry?" Lace says. She's not sure what exactly he means or what he's thinking, but she doesn't like his frown or the furrow between his brows.

"Don't be," he says as the expression vanishes from his face. "Just tell me what Karaas told you about the firewood."

A part of her wants to press and tell him his Hissrad face change doesn't work on her, that she's still willing to listen, even if he thinks he shouldn't talk to her… She concedes again and lets it go.

"It was Cassandra who told me, actually."

Bull's groan shakes the tent. "Of course it was. I can already tell you half her version is just slander."

* * *

The rain stops before first light the next morning. At first, Lace thinks it's the sudden absence of the sound of it that wakes her, but then she hears a sharp whistle and recognizes it from the dream she was just having, even though the details have long since slipped away in the ten seconds she's been awake.

Her blanket is uncomfortably damp across her back, but her face and hands are tucked up against Bull's chest, warm and dry. He's awake, too. He waggles his eyebrows at her, eye patch bobbing up and down with secret meaning.

Lace catches the enough of his thoughts to know to move very slowly for her dagger.

A third whistle, then a voice.

"Oy, Chief, we know it's you, I can see your stupid stripe pants!"

"Krem?" Bull calls back.

"Yes, Krem! Who else? Were you expecting, Divine Rosamund? A varterral wearing two and a half pairs of roller skates?"

A higher voice rings out. "Divine Rosamund, now was she the sexy one?"

"_The sexy one?_ Oh for -- Dalish, really?"

"Yes, she was the sexy one," Lace calls to them before a scuffle breaks out outside.

"I knew it!"

Lace crawls out of the tent quickly, dagger and wet blanket in tow, before Bull can start wrestling with the canvas in earnest trying to free his horns.

"Hah!" says Dalish. She claps Lace on the shoulder. "They sent the best out to find us, did they? Good old Inquisitor."

Bull bellows in triumph, finally free of the tent. A small flock of majestically coloured birds takes off from a nearby tree.

Krem and Dalish move forward to greet him, but Bull is faster. He scoops both of them up, one in each arm and squeezes hard enough that Lace is sure they're bruised.

"Idiots," he says, overly fondly, and sets them back on what they're counting as solid ground.

"The others?" Bull asks, like he's just realized they're two instead of five.

"This way," Krem says, motioning to probably the one direction Lace and Bull didn't try yesterday. "But… Hope you don't mind wet boots."

"They've been wet forever, what's a little more?"

Krem and Dalish lead the way.

* * *

"Are you… I guess there's been problems out here?" Lace asks, eyes scanning around the camp to take it all in.

Krem frowns, following her eyes. "What makes you say that?"

"The pit makes her say that. The giant, spike-filled pit makes her say that. Because she's a sane person. _Unlike other people I could mention._" Lace doesn't know Rocky as well as she knows the others, but she's betting he couldn't sound more sarcastic right now if he tried.

"Oh, the pit's not a problem, dear," Dalish says and she's got a cheeky grin to match her tone. She waves her hand past Lace's head, directing attention away from the pit. "In fact, the pit is a solution to last week's problems."

Bull's still got an arm slung over Skinner's shoulders. "Spike pit. Classic."

Dalish directs their attention to the campfire (fire! Lace wants to dive right in, but she won't. At least not until she's also had a chance to make a cup of tea). "The problem is Grim."

"Rude," grunts Grim from beside the fire.

"Leg's broken. Stitches did all his tricks, but it's still too weak to walk on," Dalish explains, when it becomes clear Grim's done with talking.

"Stitches?" There's a split second of pure panic that Lace hears in his voice. She's not sure if any of them caught it, but either way, they know enough to answer him immediately.

"Sleeping in. He took the long watch last night."

"Well, we'll talk to him when he wakes up, see if there's another plan. I don't want anyone to stay here longer than we need to."

"Oh, really? But we're having such a lovely time!" Rocky is a dwarf after her own heart, Lace can tell. Bull goes to speak with him and Krem, leaving Lace alone with Dalish and Skinner.

"So," she says, not sure what topics of conversation are safe. "Can you tell me about the kinds of problems you can solve with spike pits?"

"Oh, everything, love, simply everything!"

* * *

Unsurprisingly, the Chargers have a tent big enough for Bull's horns, so Lace gets to stretch out in her little canvas cave and relax. She's still damp and will probably never fully dry out again, but there was warm mutton stew and tea for dinner and the Chargers wouldn't even let her take a watch. Just about as great as it gets out here, she figures.

She dozes off to the nearby sound of a fire crackling and low voices punctuated with Bull's familiar laughter.

* * *

They're going to bind Grim's leg between two boards so they don't jostle it, and fashion some kind of sling so they can take turns support him out of the Wilds. Once they're back on remotely some kind of path or at least out of the obnoxiously thick canopy of trees, they'll send a message to Skyhold for horses to meet them.

It's a good plan. Well, it's the best plan they've got right now.

And it's pouring, pounding, beating down rain. No one's going anywhere today.

"Lace?" Bull calls to her through the intensity of the storm.

"Yeah?" she calls back.

He crawls into her tent, shaking water off like a dog, his horns scraping along the canvas. "Hey. Hi. Sorry."

"I should think so," she says, smiling so he knows she's kidding, but wiping the water from her face so he knows he's still a big pain in the butt.

"Didn't realize how much I'd miss you," he says.

Lace looks to him for the punchline. No punchline comes. "Pardon?" she asks. Must one of those Rivaini jokes she doesn't get.

"See, this is the 'you're too easy to talk to' thing. It's good, to talk. And once you start, you want to keep doing it. I want to, anyway."

She continues to watch him for some sign he might start making sense. 

"You wanna make me say it? It's not going to embarrass me. You know all the details about the Firewood Incident; what's going to embarrass me more than that? I like talking to you. I like talking to you at night before I sleep. I like talking to you here, in this tiny little tent with no room between us."

"Oh," Lace says. It's starting to make more sense, but it's still not funny. The Rivaini people must be _really_ strange.

"I'm going to try kissing you, okay?"

"Not funny," Lace tells him.

"Not trying to be. Qunari, remember? No concept of comedy."

"Ah. So you're serious."

"As serious as… something that's serious."

"Clever."

"I sure can be," he says, a smile slipping across his face.

He leans in and Lace pushes herself to her knees to meet his mouth. It's a good kiss, all things considered. One of Bull's hands presses into the small of her back, warm and steady, so unlike everything else has been recently.

Lace makes a noise into his mouth and she's almost ashamed of it, until he laughs without breaking the kiss and rests his free hand at the back of her neck. He even twists a few stray strands of hair with his fingers. Lace makes another, much more evocative noise. She's kneeling, so her knees don't give out, but it may have been close otherwise.

She shifts against him, trying to find a place to put her hands on his broad chest. Bull tries to move back a little, to let her into his space, when there's an ominous noise and a deluge of ice cold rainwater soaking them both.

"Horns!" Bull roars, letting go of Lace and trying to bat the torn canvas away from his head. She ducks out of his way and scampers over to huddle between Dalish and Skinner. Dalish is holding an oilcloth over them to save them from the worst of the torrent.

"D'you think the sexy Divine would have had a painting like that?" Dalish asks, shouting above the rain to Skinner. Skinner says something back, but Skinner lacks the volume that the rest of the Chargers have. Her menace comes from non-verbal communication rather than vocal qualities.

Krem, Rocky, and Stitches are still trying to help Bull out of the wreckage of the tent, not remotely out of earshot. They groan, as loud as thunder.

"Dalish! Enough about the sexy Divine!" Krem shouts, waving an unsavoury hand gesture their way.

"To the pit!" roars Rocky.

"Were you standing out here spying on us?" Lace asks. She's not even sure what possible answer she's going to get.

"Yes, to see if you were kissing," Skinner says. "We had a bet going."

"Really?" Lace didn't believe that was the sort of thing the Chargers talked about in relation to their boss.

Skinner clarifies the point like she can read Lace's mind. "Yes, would you be kissing, or go straight to fucking. Rocky thought you'd kick him out. Stupid Rocky," she adds with a chuckle.

"We give it three sexy Divines out of three," Dalish says. She flashes two thumbs up and nudges Skinner until she provides the third thumb.

"Pit!" screams the chorus.

The rain continues to pour, the Chargers continue to bicker, the ground continues to suck at her boots. Finally free from the last of the tattered canvas, Bull looks over at her and grins.

If there's one thing Lace Harding is, it's remarkably pleased at how this rescue mission turned out in the end.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to everyone for helping me out with this, and a big thank you to Rosamund, the sexy Divine (check the wiki, she was real and she was erotic!).
> 
> Happy B.E., d_elfie!! Thanks for letting me try out this pairing. I love them <3


End file.
